Antoine Lavoisier, 18th century French chemist, as a final experiment told his colleague that he would try to blink as long as possible after being beheaded.
I'd heard about this before so apologies for the following link:
But Google AI says: the execution site was too removed for such an experiment to be observed, and the story likely originated in a 1990s Discovery Channel documentary and spread online.
I claim this as the "Storey Effect": the things you remember as being interesting, were interesting because they were unlikely, which means they are probably made-up or simply wrong.
Merlin Sheldrake in Entangled Life explores the weird brainless intelligence of amoeba, fungi, octopuses and uses it as a springboard for us to question our feelings about our own identities. Have you read it?
I noticed his amazing dad, Rupert Sheldrake, just appeared on Substack!
The slime is making me feel insecure about my intelligence lol. I do find it interesting how Dijkstra's algorithm seems to make an appearance in nature like this; efficiently finding the shortest path between two points. I wonder what else it could do.
On the note of execution by guillotine, I've always wondered about the perspective of the person being executed. What's going on in that thirteen second window? How much pain are they in? Does their brain manage to block such pain signals? What thoughts and emotions are they having? Of course, I would never want to find out for myself though.
Pictures of brains in vats always have eyes. Maybe it's just to make them look alive but where do you draw the line in what you keep? How much sensory deprivation could you tolerate? You could simulate everything, Matrix-style, but then you may as well keep the body.
Could there be a bodyless mind? Yes. Would it be human? No.
Antoine Lavoisier, 18th century French chemist, as a final experiment told his colleague that he would try to blink as long as possible after being beheaded.
I'd heard about this before so apologies for the following link:
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/1cj7h4l/antoine_lavoisier_18th_century_french_chemist_as/
But Google AI says: the execution site was too removed for such an experiment to be observed, and the story likely originated in a 1990s Discovery Channel documentary and spread online.
I claim this as the "Storey Effect": the things you remember as being interesting, were interesting because they were unlikely, which means they are probably made-up or simply wrong.
Oh, that’s so interesting. Now that would have been dedication to science if it were true.
Merlin Sheldrake in Entangled Life explores the weird brainless intelligence of amoeba, fungi, octopuses and uses it as a springboard for us to question our feelings about our own identities. Have you read it?
I noticed his amazing dad, Rupert Sheldrake, just appeared on Substack!
I have read it; a wonderful book that really made me appreciate fungi (even more).
I can’t look at lichen anymore without feeling the borders of my own biological existence dissolve a little.
The slime is making me feel insecure about my intelligence lol. I do find it interesting how Dijkstra's algorithm seems to make an appearance in nature like this; efficiently finding the shortest path between two points. I wonder what else it could do.
On the note of execution by guillotine, I've always wondered about the perspective of the person being executed. What's going on in that thirteen second window? How much pain are they in? Does their brain manage to block such pain signals? What thoughts and emotions are they having? Of course, I would never want to find out for myself though.
Oh, you’ll like this comparison between Dijkstra, slime molds, and ant colonies: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2014/487069.
Pictures of brains in vats always have eyes. Maybe it's just to make them look alive but where do you draw the line in what you keep? How much sensory deprivation could you tolerate? You could simulate everything, Matrix-style, but then you may as well keep the body.
Could there be a bodyless mind? Yes. Would it be human? No.
Great observation. Agreed,